Shareholder Agreement Documents

Simply-Docs provides a comprehensive set of Shareholder Agreement templates and related corporate documents designed for UK private companies. These templates help record the rights, responsibilities, and relationships between shareholders, directors, and the company. The collection includes preparation guides, draft Shareholder Agreements, optional clauses, deeds, and Declarations of Trust for nominee shareholders.

All documents are solicitor-drafted, regularly updated to comply with the Companies Act 2006, and suitable for startups, SMEs, and professional advisers.

Preparing Your Shareholder Agreement

Provides a practical guide in the form of Shareholders’ Agreement Notes and a Shareholders’ Agreement Checklist to help company founders and shareholders plan the content of their shareholder agreement before drafting and/or instructing legal advisors.

Contents & Use:

Explains key terms and clauses (e.g. share transfers, decision-making, exit provisions).
Helps you determine which agreement template suits your company structure and goals.
Ideal first step before completing or signing any formal shareholder documentation.

Shareholder Agreement Templates

These are the core legal templates that set out the terms on which shareholders own and manage a company. This selection covers a range of structures and interests to reduce the requisite tailoring to specific needs.

Contents & Variants:

Includes a matrix to help you choose the best fit agreement
Standard Shareholder Agreement (equal or unequal holdings)
Agreements for new investors or joint ventures
Optional provisions for director appointments, dividends, and dispute resolution

Shareholder Agreement Optional Clauses

These optional clauses provide stand-alone templates you can insert into your agreement to handle particular issues such as board representation, exit mechanics, deadlock or minority protections.

Context:

The combination of applying relevant optional clause(s) to a robust base template delivers a comprehensive, tailored shareholder agreement rather than a one-size-fits-all document.

Deeds of Adherence and Termination

Formal deeds for adding or removing parties from an existing shareholder agreement.

Includes:

Deed of Adherence: allows a new shareholder or investor to join the existing agreement on the same terms.

Deed of Termination: releases a departing shareholder from their obligations.

Declarations of Trust for Nominee Shareholders

Used when shares are held by a nominee or trustee on behalf of a beneficial owner.

Context:
These templates complement, but are not part of, a shareholder agreement. They record the beneficial interest in shares where the registered shareholder is acting as a nominee.

For full details of this group of documents please click on the links below:

Shareholder Agreement Documents is part of Corporate. Just £38.50 + VAT provides unlimited downloads from Corporate for 1 year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a shareholders' agreement legally required? +

No. Every company must have articles of association, but a shareholders' agreement is optional. It is still strongly worth having wherever a company has more than one shareholder, because it privately governs matters the articles rarely cover, such as exits, deadlock, dividend policy and restrictions on competing. The Shareholder Agreement Templates in this group give you a solicitor drafted starting point matched to your situation.

What is the difference between a shareholders' agreement and the articles of association? +

The articles are the company's public constitutional document, filed at Companies House and binding as a matter of company law. A shareholders' agreement is a private contract between the shareholders (and often the company), so it stays confidential and a breach gives the other parties a claim for damages or an injunction. The two must be drafted to work together, which is why Simply-Docs provides preparation notes alongside the agreement templates.

Will our shareholders' agreement be visible on Companies House? +

No. A shareholders' agreement is not filed at Companies House, so its terms stay private, unlike the articles. One caution: avoid drafting the articles so they incorporate or depend on the agreement, as that can drag the agreement into the public constitutional documents. Keep sensitive commercial terms (valuations, exit plans, funding obligations) in the agreement and let the Simply-Docs templates and notes guide the split.

A new investor is joining, do we have to rewrite the whole shareholders' agreement? +

Usually not. A Deed of Adherence binds the new shareholder to the existing agreement on the same terms as everyone else, without renegotiating or re-executing the original document. The Simply-Docs Deed of Adherence in this group covers individuals and companies and can be executed in counterparts. If the investment changes the deal itself, consider the New Share Issue agreement templates instead.

Someone holds shares on my behalf, do we need anything in writing? +

Yes, put a Declaration of Trust in place. It records that the registered shareholder (the nominee) holds the shares on trust for you as beneficial owner, protecting your rights to dividends, voting and sale proceeds. Be aware that if you beneficially hold more than 25% you will normally still appear on the company's public PSC register, as the regime looks through nominee arrangements. Simply-Docs provides Basic and Long form declarations.

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